Fruit Salad
by planet p
Summary: Revised! What's not happy isn't always sad, either. Sometimes it's just what it is, and nothing more. A story about Timmy and his mother; together, and then apart; safe and sound, and then not.
1. Chapter 1

His mother didn't like the fruit salad that came in tin cans; she said it was surely made to put you right off the whole idea of fruit salad from start to finish. She said that was sad.

Timmy watched his mother cutting the fruit for the fruit salad. She'd never let him near a knife, not at his age, not even if she was holding it, too, but she let him decide how big or how small to cut the pieces of apple or banana, or if they tasted best if they were cut in a triangle shape or a star shape, or any other shape at all, and she let him decide how many grapes to add, if they'd been able to find some nice grapes at the store cheap that week.

If the fruit didn't look good still, she didn't buy it. As his mother cut the orange, Timmy thought about the supermarket where his mom had lifted him up so he could reach over and choose which oranges they'd take. He'd liked the feel of the orange peel, kind of smooth, and kind of not, kind of bumpy, too. Sometimes, he'd hold a piece of fruit up to his face and feel what it felt like on his cheek; it wasn't the same feeling as with his hands. But best of all, he liked the orangey smell of orange peel.

When his mother had finished making the fruit salad - which was always a very exciting moment - she'd serve it up in two bowls, one for each of them, and they'd walk back to the lounge room and sit down on the couch in front of the television with the black and white screen - like the newspaper, Timmy always thought, but with pictures that moved and told the stories instead of words - and Timmy would snuggle up next to his mom and they'd watch old movies. Sometimes, even, his mom would sing along to the songs if a particular movie had them and she'd seen it before a few times so she could fairly easily remember the tunes, and Timmy would laugh because he was happy and his mom was happy, too.

Then, sometimes, he'd wonder why it was that he was never happy on his own; like, if his mom was unhappy, then so was he, even when he didn't know quite why it was that his mother wasn't happy.

Mostly, he liked to think about the good times he spent with his mom, who loved him very, very much, just like mothers did. He never really thought about the people whose mom didn't love them, because he just assumed that that was how all moms were: loving. He didn't know his dad, but he kind of thought that if he'd had the chance to know his dad, and his dad had had the chance to know him, then his dad would have loved him just the same way that his mom did. He didn't know about all the kids whose parents didn't love them, not then, or the kids who didn't have parents.

When his mother sung along to the movies, he smiled. He never smiled when he wasn't happy; people smiled because they were happy. People never smiled when they were in pain, or because they just didn't want to cry when everything went downhill and all of their hopes were shattered. At least, Timmy had never smiled because of something like that.

And if he had, if he had smiled when his heart had really been breaking in two, when he'd been missing his mother and the sound of her voice and the warmth of her when he'd used to snuggle up to her on the couch, Angelo didn't remember.

Sometimes, he forgot that children had parents, and that everyone had been a child once. Sometimes, he just didn't see the point in being a child, in being so vulnerable, so naive; sometimes, no matter how hard he tried or set his mind to it, he just couldn't work it out. It seemed silly and pointless and nothing else.

If he'd still been Timmy, he'd have had a thousand words of argument, of rebuttal, but Angelo had none.

It wasn't sad, it was just how it was. He wasn't Timmy, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

His mother worked in a diner. She was not to be taken a woman of indelible means, by any stretch or flight of the imagination. She didn't have a man. Sometimes it made her lonely; she'd have liked the odd moment of adult company. But she had Timmy, and he had her, and that made her feel needed, and more than that, Timmy always had a way of making her feel loved; granted, it was in his own special way, but it was a way nonetheless. She was his mother, and she wouldn't have traded that for a single thing in this world.

The thing of it was, she wasn't a rich or influential woman. When Timmy went missing, nobody wanted to hear about it. They all thought she'd been a bad mother to the boy, anyway; she could just tell. She didn't kick up much of a fuss, she was afraid they'd say she'd done him in and stashed the body. They'd said such things before, in other places at other times, maybe even right here, she'd thought one night as she tried to keep her tears at bay long enough to pour a straight cup of coffee.

Sobbin' her eyes out at work, she reminded herself, was not the way to keep a job, and it wasn't the way to keep a happy boss, either.

She tried to make her peace with Timmy's disappearance as best she could. She saved up for some nice things, but they were nice things she never bought herself. She'd have bought them for Timmy if he'd still been around, but as it was, and he wasn't, she went looking for a man to buy them for.

She'd start over, she'd decided one night at the diner, when there hadn't been many customers and she'd missed the sound of another person's voice, anyone's voice, it didn't matter. She'd have other kids, she'd be happy and she'd never need miss the sound of someone else's voice again.

She'd never need miss Timmy's hand when he'd used to hold hers; she'd have another little boy or girl to hold her hand, she'd have a warm, caring man to hold her when she felt down.

She'd tell those kids all about how donuts were made, and where they'd come from, and who thought differently from who on the subject. She'd make fruit salad and hamburgers and they'd have picnics when the weather was right.

Maybe one day she'd get herself enough saved up to buy her own diner; maybe she'd even name it something nice; maybe she'd name it after her first born.

Nobody was indelible, she told herself, there came a time in life where you had to let go of everyone until, finally, it was you letting go, in the end. She promised herself that when it was her time, she wouldn't hold any hard feelings, and she'd think of Timmy, she'd tell him again that she loved him, and how _much_ she did.

And maybe, maybe he'd hear her.


End file.
